Last Updated on December 13, 2015
Recently I finished a new PC build for myself, my dream build, and I had bought Windows 7 64bit and I decided to take part of the free upgrade to Windows 10.
A Bit Skeptical
To be honest, I was and still am a bit skeptical about Windows 10 as far as privacy and data sharing goes.
Although right away after install Microsoft lets you say yes or no to being able to share a bunch of different stuff but the fact that they had so many different options which dealt with sharing data and sending data to Microsoft had me feeling a bit weird.
With that, I still went ahead and moved forward with fully installing it for my PC. So far on the user experience side of things, I’m absolutely loving it.
Customizing everything to my personal taste is really easy to do and I really dig the new start menu. I changed the search bar right next to the start menu from Bing to Google and my favorite internet browser Vivaldi is working pretty good with Windows 10.
Vivaldi is still in beta, there have been a couple of times where Vivaldi would crash but it’s a very rare occurrence. I’m really liking how it is working with Windows 10 and I don’t regret doing the upgrade at all so far.
Steam and games overall have ran perfectly. I play Stronghold Crusader still to this day and at first I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t working with Windows 10 but then I remembered that compatibility mode is an actual thing (can’t believe it took me a while to think of that) and so after putting in Windows 7 compatibility mode for Stronghold I was able to run it flawlessly.
I’m pretty sure this would work for any older game that ran on previous versions of Windows because Stronghold worked right away once I set up the compatibility mode.
The Future of Windows 10?
I haven’t really touched or even thought about touching any of Microsoft’s products that are integrated such as their app store, Microsoft Edge, things of that nature. The only apps I’m using that are by Microsoft are Photos, Calculator and the Weather app.
I think that Windows 10 is going to be a great future OS simply because of its DirectX 12 compatibility and the fact that it’s an easy OS to use and to get used to. Sure it took maybe a few days to really get the hang of the new start menu and navigating around the new feel of it but other than that it’s a pretty simple and easy to use OS.
I think that many people have moved to and will move to Windows 10 as the default operating system. It’s basically like having Windows 7 and Windows 8 combined into one which is actually a really good combination.
I think that the future of using it as an OS is bright, but I don’t think the whole Windows app store and Windows app movement is going to have as big of an impact. Gaming is pretty awesome with it, the speed of it is pretty awesome and the overall customization is great!
I am constantly checking on my privacy settings and data sharing settings to make sure that Microsoft doesn’t try to pull a fast one on me to see everything that I’m up to, but that’s really the only “complaint” that I have about Windows 10.
No I’m not doing anything illegal, hell I don’t even torrent anything anymore. I simply like knowing that all of my information is private and for me only.
To Conclude
All in all, Windows 10 is an easy to use and very customizable OS with a weird vibe of potentially invading privacy. Though this could also just be me being a bit paranoid…
What are your thoughts on Windows 10? Do you like it?
Are you currently using Windows 10 as your operating system?
Let me know in the comments below! 😀
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Well, I have reached a final verdict. I managed to access Windows Advanced Troubleshoot Options by hard resetting my device. I then was able to return to my lovely Windows 7 OS. After running some quick Windows updates and bringing Norton up to speed, I can finally say that my computer is once again working. I’ll be waiting a good while before I try to go to Win10 again, as I gotta figure out what went wrong. However, thanks so much for all of your help during this project, I couldn’t have done it without you!
Awesome to hear that John! I’m sure that after a while longer you’ll be able to get into the Windows 10 update.
Feel free to check back here and take a look at some of the most recent content on the right sidebar of the site, would love to hear from you down the road man!
Am I gonna need to redownload my drivers? Because that would be a royal pain in the back end.
Depends on how far back you have to go with the back up. Odds are probably not, but you might have to…
Okay, I did a bit of research. Turns out other people have had this problem or similar. One such issue wasthe fact that whatever security you had on it had to be turned off. Only way to do that is to go back to Windows 7. How do I do that?
This article is probably going to be very useful for you man, you’ll just have to do a recovery.
Well, Win10 seemed to download okay, but for some reason I can’t even log in, not even for the first time. I enter my password, hit ‘Next’, and it seems to freeze even though the curser in the password text still blinks and I can still move the mouse. I try to click Next again, and the mouse hand is replaced by the loading wheel. If I try it one more time, the screen lights up, then goes dark, then my PC restarts. What’s up with this?
Personally, I’ve never heard of that issue John.
I would give Microsoft support a call about it, they’d be able to help you more at this point as I am not really certain as to how to fix/get around that “bug” really…
Problem solved. I got a new product key from Miscrosoft so that my Windows is genuine (windows ARE genuine? Eh), and I had to download their special tool off the Win10 site joint thing.
However, I left it to download over the night (scheduled for today at six, but I wanted to start it last night), and when I checked it this morning it still said ‘Starting download’. Is it just pacing itself to be ready for the scheduled time, or what?
Okay, when I try downloading Win10, the application page closes for no reason. No error message or anything. But this may have something to do with it…
Apparently my Win7 product activation key (it is just now telling me) is invalid for activation of my administrator power. What is up with this?
Your PC’s account is an admin account, right?
So you had gotten the Windows 7 from Amazon and already activated it via the product key as well?
Disregard all other comments. I’m terribly sorry for the spam, I was exhausted.
I believe my necessary drivers are installed thanks to a bit of intuition and some patience. My GPU driver is updating as I type, and from what I can tell, all is well. Now, the final question for now.
Do I now upgrade to Windows 10, and if so, will I have to redownload all my drivers?
You’re not spamming man, no worries for that at all.
No, all of your drivers, files etc will stay after the upgrade given that your admin stuff gets figured out…
Well, I happened to notice that my disk had consistent scratches around the middle of the radius of the disk all the way around. Could that be causing it, and if so, do I need to replace it? Otherwise do you know of a way to launch and install the drivers on the disk using WinExplorer?
Weird, is it brand new? So the disk that came with it for the drivers is all scratched up?
Your best bet would be to contact either Amazon or even the manufacturer, that’s crazy if it’s a brand new part it should come with a brand new disk… Otherwise you’ll also be able to find the drivers online. Are you trying to get the drivers to the motherboard? If so, which exact motherboard do you have? I’ll help you find the drivers!
And yes, I can see the files if I open it with Windows Explorer. If there was some way to download them off the disk without actually running into my other problem, that’d be great. The Audio driver is downloading from Gigabyte’s site at the grand pace of 325 bytes per second, so yeah…
Might be able to install them from the files in the CD, weird that it won’t like autorun with the CD drive. Look for an installation file, a .exe perhaps?